Chris Janson’s ‘Good Vibes’ Goes Much Deeper Than You Think

Cross Chris Janson's family and you'll ruin his good vibes. Bad news on television? Yeah, that will do it, too. Living in a car behind an Irish pub on Nashville's Lower Broadway? Not so much.

Janson talks about this time in his life like he was lucky to have been chosen. "My dad still drives that car to this day," he tells Taste of Country. "I just didn’t know any better and I enjoyed every minute of it."

The Missouri-raised "Good Vibes" singer spent a month and a half sleeping on the folded-down front seats of a two-door Chevrolet Monte Carlo behind what's now Honky Tonk Central. It was fall or winterish, he recalls. Once a week he'd find a couch to sleep on and a friend's shower to clean up in. Consistent work made the experience more enjoyable.

"It was rare to even nap and sleep, because when you're playing as much as I was, you just didn’t really have time, frankly," he says. Speaking to media and country music insiders a week earlier, he told a similar story among several other down-on-his-luck tales he remembers like fairytales. You can't bring this guy down!

These experiences didn't directly lead to "Good Vibes," but they speak to his character. Janson is the kind of guy who will tell friends (in this case, Ashley Gorley and Zach Crowell), "Good vibes only in this room" after they spent time grumbling about life and jobs and family like most people do. Crowell suggested writing that title, and Gorley started spitting out lyrics in real-time. An hour or so later, out came the lead single from his new album, his third on Warner Music Nashville.

Other songs Janson shared last month come with a similarly positive sentiment. The theme was accidental, he insists. "I think it's just the place I'm at in my life," the married father to two with two bonus kids says. "I'm really happy and I'm extremely confident in the music, and it's very humbling."

Not much will ruin his mood, outside of television and people that come at his family or friends. "I also don’t like to see strangers — I don’t like to see people getting picked on and bullied. I don’t like those parts of the world. And there's a lot of that going on."

"But there's a lot of it not going on, too," he adds immediately. Good vibes FTW.